In the Night Application

[really_sketchy]

PLAYER INFO

Player Name: Ami.
Player Contact: mizuyoko or Discord PhantomStar#1289.
Character(s) In-Game: NA.

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Naminé.
Age: Apparent age: 18-ish. Actual age: 2-ish. She's had her current body for less than a week.
Canon: Kingdom Hearts.

World Description: Kingdom Hearts; Chain of Memories Wiki.

History: Naminé Wiki Link.

CRAU: NA.


Death: Naminé does not have a canon death. However, post of Kingdom Hearts 3, Naminé is finally given a human body. While flying with Riku to Destiny Island, that body will fail for the purposes of 'In the Night' and she dies in Riku's arms before reaching Destiny Island.


What are your plans for this character in-game? I do not have any specific plans for Naminé in game. I would like for her to be able to grow and begin experiencing her life, even in the dark haze of death. I do intend to get Naminé pulled into as many plots and emotional altering situations as I possibly can. Naminé is a very dynamic character, even just through the course of Chain of Memories where Sora's influence gives her courage to stand up to those who have been using her unique abilities. Each person in game, canon mate or cross canon, will influence her and change her and I am excited to see what happens.


What aspects of this game and/or its setting are you most interested in having this character engage with? I personally love horror games. I don't actually like scary things, like I can only watch bad 80s horror movies or my HP Lovecraft Victorian era stuff and maybe some Poe, but I love what those mentally taxing situations can do to character development. It's interesting to see if they will fight or fall or run and a lot of the time I don't know what will happen until I thread it out because even the smallest realization or response can shift an entire situation. This is even more true for Kingdom Hearts characters, where the entire premise of the game is built upon abstract concepts of light and dark, perception and the strength of one's heart. Naminés greatest fear is of the dark. Not of the absence of light but being surrounded by nothing. She woke up with no memories of who she was and this awkward existence has lead her down an uncertain path. This setting naturally plays into her fears, that loneliness and that desire to not only exist but be loved and a part of something greater than herself. So it isn't one part of the game that had particularly drew me in but the setting itself and I look forward to seeing how that effects Naminé as time goes on.


How does your character generally get along with other people? The short answer is that she gets along with other people very well.

Naminé is very soft spoken and while she can be confident and determined when need be, that isn't her outward demeanor. She is very quiet, lonely, uncertain, innocent, forgiving and generous. She wears her emotions on her sleeve and because of this she can be easily manipulated or adored. She often inspires other people to protect her. Even as she manipulated Sora's memories, he wanted to continue to protect her.


What is your character's mental state upon entering the game? Naminé wants to live and finally have a life of her own but she constantly struggles with the fact that wasn't supposed to be born in the first place. She is unique, a Nobody born from a pure heart. (i.e. without any darkness in her) Throughout the series she believes that no one wants her or needs her and that she'll eventually fade away. At the end of Chain of Memories, Sora chooses to forget her and his time in the castle. Riku stays but Naminé knows that it is for Sora's sake, not her own.

This is a very deep wound that Naminé carries with her through Kingdom Hearts 2 & 3 and having died shortly after being offered a body will only encourage that wound to fester. She will begin to believe that she was never met to exist, that she was only ever a piece of Kairi, and she will continue to wrestle with her identity and purpose.

Being brought to another world isn't surprising within the Kingdom Hearts mind set but being dead and not having another chance is going to hit her hard. At first she might not even believe it.


Skills/Abilities: Not a lot is canonically known about Naminé's power set and this is because she is technically a plot device within the Kingdom Hearts canon. I have taken her various abilities and claims throughout the canon and have extrapolated below to give her abilities firm limits and guides that don't exist in canon.

Naminé is a Nobody born from a heart without darkness and is the first and only one of her kind. I have listed out the known details of her powers as well as the unknown. There is not enough information to make a reasonable guess about what her limitations and so for this game I have set them at what I feel sounds reasonable. Please let me know if something should be changed, considering the haze around her power set, I prefer to let the mods decide over any of my theories.

i. She has the power to control, manipulate and awaken memories. In Chain of Memories she alters Sora's memories by replacing his past with Kairi with herself. She also adds facts to his childhood memories that feel as if they were something that he had forgotten. Within the game, this appears to happen quickly. I believe that this is because Naminé built upon existing memories as well as early childhood memories and inserted herself into them. Studies show that memories are a malleable concept and are open to perception and alterations through time, so this makes the timeline of these effects believable.

However, after the events of Chain of Memories, it takes Naminé approximately a year to reconstruct and repair Sora's memories, with the help of Diz and Riku since some of Sora's memories are walking around as Nobodies (i.e. Xion and Roxas). This proves that the process of altering and repairing memories to their original takes a lot longer and may only possible by Sora's willing and sleeping state. For the purposes of this game, Naminé cannot do this instantly and it would only work well if she had someone willing to let her enter their mind.

It is implied after talking to Terra as a lingering-will that she can manipulate anyone's memories, not just Sora or those connected to him (i.e. Roxas and Ven). She calls herself a witch and states as a matter of fact that she can alter people's memories. This leaves a very large opening for interpretation that we as players may never get but the canon does state that Naminés powers are not connected on specific people.

ii. She has the power to alter small objects. In relation to altering people's memories, Naminé also alters items to look like other items. It is heavily implied that this ability uses the same memory altering power to fuel the objects deception. It is very similar to a polymorph spell in D&D. The object is not actually changed because it changes back the moment that the person holding it realizes that it's fake or remembers where it had originally come from. The best example of this is when she turns Kairi's good luck charm to Sora into one of her own. She doesn't change its size, only what it looks like and its meaning is rooted in Sora's fake memories. In mathematical terms, Naminé can cast polymorph with a spell DC of 18.

iii. The Keyblade. Naminé has a strong heart, born form Kairi who is a keyblade wielder. It is canon that the Nobodies of keyblade wielders can also use keyblades; Roxas for example. In Naminés case, this does not happen because she doesn't truly exist as her own person until the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 but because of the canon, she would be able to wield a keyblade if her heart is unlocked. There are also characters in the canon who can unlock keyblades inside of people; for example, Terra. Naminé has this untrained ability however it will not occur in game unless a canon mate has the power to unlock it. She will not be able to unlock the ability herself and even if she does she will be untrained and unable to do much with it.

This is not a firm limit because my goal in this game is for her to grow and while I do not expect Naminé to ever become a keyblade wielder, I want to leave this as an option for her that can be visited through conversations with other players and the mod team as her development progresses.

This ability to learn does not include magic spells or clothes transformations or a lot of the craziness that is in Kingdom Hearts because those abilities are taught through other means and are not dependent on or related to the keyblade itself.

iv. Deeper Connections. Naminés' heart is connected to many characters throughout the Kingdom Hearts canon. Due to this connection she is able to speak to and locate Roxas, Xion, Terra and others throughout the series in super questionable ways that are never explained. It is not clear if Naminé is able to speak to anyone close to her heart or the hearts she's become close too but this power allows her to find people or "sense" them in true Kingdom Hearts fashion. She can also sense connections and similarities to those she knows, which is how she finds Terra as a lingering-will when separated from Kairi in Kingdom Hearts 3.

This is very explained and it is one of the few parts of Naminés power set that truly frustrates me because there is not a lot of canon support or explanation behind how she has done this.

It is very unclear but the connections that Naminé makes with people seem to be more than just a feeling. My current theory (this is all head-canon) is that Naminés' power over memories allows her to access the minds of those who are in her heart. It is canon that pieces of people can be left behind in another's heart, like a memory, and I believe that Naminé uses that power to find Terra and speak to him even if it's similar to a physic connection. This is never actually explained but there are many examples of her doing this and I do not think it is just playing degrees of separation from Sora or Kairi's heart since those two were not the ones in contact with Terra in Birth by Sleep. When she contacts Terra she is disembodied and nearly dead as well, which stands to reason that it is a natural talent of hers versus straining between the thin 'degrees from Sora' which is the only other headcanon theory about how Naminé is able to do this.

For the purposes of this game, I would like to have this ability to simply function as a spell. It will be as simple as a feeling that lets her find or sense someone. It will not let her communicate with them. Sort of like a D&D locate persons spell. This ability will be placed on her permissions post and will only work on those who become close to Naminé IC and respond to her permission post OOC. Even then, this ability will only work intermittently and with only with the player's permission such that it can be used as a plot device in game.

Flaws/Weaknesses:

Naminé is afraid of being alone and forgotten, it's this fear that the organization manipulates to use her against Sora and its this fear and uncertainty that often gets in the way of her own development.

Naminé is very lonely. She takes Kairi's place in Sora's memories instead of just creating another place because she wants to be loved and have friends but doesn't actually know how to do that. She has no memories of her own and lacked an understanding of the world she'd been born into. She learns how to be a friend through Sora and his memories but she doesn't believe that anyone will miss her when she disappears. Naminé cares about many people but, as seen when she speaks to Sora as a lingering-will, she doesn't believe that anyone will miss her or want her back when everything is all over.

Physically speaking, Naminé is weak and untrained in any sort of fighting. She has the power set of a standard human and is pretty flimsy.

There are those she will sacrifice herself for: Sora, Kairi, Riku, Roxas, Xion, etc. However, when push comes to shove, Naminé will try and help those she counts as friends. It doesn't matter if it is someone new because her desire to be loved and with others, will outweigh her sense of self or health.

Personality:

Naminé was born without memories of her own and, for a while, she believed that she was born without emotions as well. This awkward birth defines a lot of her base personality traits. She doesn't understand her own emotions and has only been able to gain definitions through her interactions with Sora's memories.

Over time, Naminé learns that some things are worth facing her fears for but her lack of personal experiences means that she can, at times, be uncertain as to where to draw the line between right and wrong. She has to be told. It is because of this that Naminé is plagued with guilt and regret over the things she's done in the past. It is this unpleasant piece of her history (being used by the Organization) that facilitates the discovery that she has emotions, even if she still does not understand them. In the end, Naminé proves that she is good. She switches sides even when it's difficult, helping Sora and Riku and defying the Organization at whatever the cost to herself or her happiness. At the end of Chain of Memories, she gives Sora a choice to forget her and Castle Oblivion to regain his original memories of Kairi and Destiny Island.

She accepts his decision to be forgotten but cries as he goes to sleep.

Naminé is brave and protective of those she cares about. At times it isn't obvious because she can be overly soft spoken but she still manages to shatter Replica Riku's memories, stand in front of Sora to protect him from the Organization, freed Kairi and convince Terra as a lingering will to not give up while being on the cusp of death/disappearing herself.

Even after the Organization's deception and threats, Naminé is very trusting. She wants to make up for the things she's done and she really doesn't know how to do that. Whatever she does to help, it never feels like it's enough. Even after helping Sora get his memories back, her guilt continues to weigh her down and influence her choices throughout Kingdom Hearts 3.

Like Kairi, she has a good heart but she's directionless and doesn't know enough about the universe to make good decisions. This makes Naminé appear very innocent. She's never seen snow or felt the seasons and she has no context outside of Castle Oblivion, Twilight Town and Sora's memories from Kingdom Hearts 1 which are literally a happy Disney mashup.

Items: She is wearing her white dress and has nothing else.

SAMPLES

Log & Network Sample: Link